The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument. Photo by Eric Gross.
November 9, 2015 Weather: Sunny, with a high of 60 degrees.
Notices:
A free concert at Lincoln Center with the Mannes Orchestra and many many more events are on our calendar.
The Defenders of Teddy Roosevelt Park, which opposes the Museum of Natural History’s expansion will hold a “breathe-in” in the park on Tuesday from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. “Bring your kids, your signs, your voices . . . and your lungs! Let the American Museum of Natural History know how important Teddy Roosevelt Park is to our community. Parkland and stately shade trees are too important to lose to the museum’s proposed expansion.” They’re meeting at 79th and Columbus.
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is accepting food donations for hungry people.
A friend of the Rag lost her embroidered purple coat that was in a clear plastic dry cleaning bag on Sunday afternoon. “It was on my lap as I was driving my Vespa on West End Ave between 94th and 72nd Streets, and it must have slipped off onto the street at some point.” Lots of sentimental value here, so please respond to us or her Craiglist posting if you find it.
News:
Linda MacDonald, a 65-year-old woman, was found dead on Friday night in her apartment on West End Avenue and 75th street with trauma to the back of her head. “We don’t know if she fell or if it was more than that,” a police source told the Daily News.
A former Stuyvesant teacher “suggested blowing up a police target and a synagogue (on the Upper West Side) to make a statement,” a prosecutor said at his sentencing. The name of the synagogue was not specified in the article.
An Alzheimer’s program is about to get kicked out of a senior residence because the residence’s owner doesn’t want to make architectural changes demanded by the Department of Health. “The Esplanade, a ‘luxury’ senior living facility on West End Avenue at West 74th Street, announced last month that it was terminating its contract with Alzheimer’s service provider Hearthstone after 20 years, initially giving patients just two week’s notice to make alternate plans.”
Some landlords getting special tax breaks are flouting rent stabilization laws for new apartments, investigative journalists at ProPublica found: “some renters are getting overcharged as government officials fail to enforce rent limits and tenants fail to grasp whether they apply to newer apartments.”
The governor’s ‘top priority’ is to torment the mayor. Lesser priorities apparently include our deteriorating transit system, high state tax rate, and outrageous systemic corruption?
Billie Holiday’s old townhouse at 26 West 87th street is on the market for a cool $13 million. “The home’s exterior, which includes motifs of flower garlands and an L-shaped stoop with two landings, is as impressive as its interior, which includes 7 bedrooms, 6 full bathrooms and two powder rooms.”
Re: “Let the American Museum of Natural History know how important Teddy Roosevelt Park is to our community. Parkland and stately shade trees are too important to lose to the museum’s proposed expansion.”
BEFORE we all rush off to scream-and-yell, perhaps we all should read last Thursday’s excellent article by Michael Kimmelman, the NY Times’s architecture expert AND A LONG-TIME UWS RESIDENT WHO RAISED A FAMILY HERE AND LOVES THAT PARK:
Kimmelman explained that the park is there THANKS TO THE A.M.N.H.:
“Judith Heintz, a landscape architect, designed that spot some 15 years ago, when the museum last expanded, adding the Rose Center for Earth and Science to the north, and the Weston Pavilion, which Gilder will replace, at 79th Street.”
and ALSO THAT THE A.M.N.H. HAS ALREADY MODIFIED ITS PLANS:
“What the center doesn’t do is occupy nearly as much parkland as critics feared. Mindful of neighborhood concerns, the museum clearly pulled the project back as much as possible from the park, consolidating on its existing footprint by knocking down three of its own buildings, claiming only 11,600 square feet, or a quarter acre, of parkland.”
Read Kimmelman’s entire article before screaming for the TV-“News” cameras; as perhaps the planned “$325 million, 218,000-square-foot Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation” WILL ACTUALLY MAKE THE UWS EVEN BETTER!
The Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation is adding a much needed center to the AMNH. The museum already has an education program that needs to be expanded and this will be good for the Upper West Siders who are lucky enough to live in a neighborhood close to the world class museum.
Unfortunately the folks who started this Save (Teddy)Theodore Roosevelt Park say they are concerned with parents teaching children to walk, etc. but that they protest too much, methinks. With a little research I discovered that they have a view that they love and don’t want to lose. I remember that when their building went up those of us who loved looking north from west 79th near Columbus lost a terrific view up the West Side when the Weil Funeral Home sold their building to developers. They are not from New York City and don’t seem to understand that sometimes progress means inconveniencing folk’s view.
Yeah – they’ve pretty much been exposed as the worst kind of NIMBYs and are just embarrassing themselves at this point.
Before we all rush off to “s ream and yell”?
You do realize that typing in caps is screaming and yelling, right? Maybe if you drop the drama others will follow suit.
Because the Web-provider which enables this site obviously does not offer stylistic effects (bold-face, italics, etc.) the ONLY way to create EMPHASIS is by typing in all-caps.
It is not the same AS TYPING EVERYTHING IN ALL CAPS WHICH, IS, OF COURSE “screaming and yelling”.
Next kvetch, please!
Actually, writers are able to provide emphasis without bolding or using all caps. Perhaps you might try reading at some point and get some tips on how it’s done.
Agree. Why read when you can complain in ignorance? Kimmelman did an excellent job of describing details of the Museum’s modified plans. The article also mentioned that, while a small number of trees would be removed to accommodate the new construction, a greater number of new trees would be added to the park, for a net gain in leafy shade.
WOW!!!
What a fantastic photograph!
Eric Gross – Well done.